


Closed fists

by kameo_chan



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-08
Updated: 2012-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-29 04:55:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kameo_chan/pseuds/kameo_chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wesley and Donnic: a comparison over the course of Aveline's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Closed fists

Aveline is six and skinny when a group of boys push her into a muddy puddle of old rain water. It smells horrible and soaks through her tunic and breeches almost immediately. "Dirty Orlesian wench!" one of the oldest boys yells at her, aiming a kick at her stomach. "Your filthy kind isn't wanted here! Go back to your own country!" And from where she lies in the mud and muck, winded and breathless, Aveline tries so very hard not to cry. _Tears are for women_ , her father always says with that heavy Orlesian burr. _You have no need for tears, Aveline. Knights do not cry._

So she endures, even when one of them pulls himself out and pisses on her. She waits until after they're gone before standing up. Her clothes are soiled, ruined and she knows that her father will scold her. They'd been relatively new, and she knows he struggles hard to make the coin necessary to look after them both. Aveline stands, and looks to the sky for answers. It doesn't give her any though, and so she makes her way back home; weary and defeated, but not crying at least.

Fifteen years later, there is a group of men waiting on the Gallows docks. These are the kinds of men who prowl dark corners looking to scrape a copper or two together. "Dirty Fereldan bitch!" their leader curses her. "I'll have your head, by Andraste's golden arse!" He aims a kick, but it doesn't follow through. Instead, he crumples to the ground and vomits. The smell is horrible; all viscid chunks and stale liquor. Aveline retracts her fist with practiced ease. Before her, the man has started crying.

"Stand up," she commands, and the man weeps even harder. "Men do not cry. You shame yourself, serah." The man continues to blubber, heedless. Aveline looks to the sky. There are no more answers there than when she was six, but at least this time, she walks away with her clothes in tact and the memory of her father's smile.

\--

She meets Wesley at a local tavern in Denerim when she is sixteen. Her breasts have just started to come in, far later than any of the other female recruits, and they ache fitfully. She is embarrassed at them, of them. No one seems to want to look her in the eye anymore and she has difficulty wielding a sword around the mutinous lumps on her once-flat chest. It shames her deeply, because all she can think of is the disappointment that will fill her father's face when next he sees her. He had always wanted a son, and had raised her as one until he had shipped her off to the army just before her fifteenth year.

"Aveline, right?" the boy smiles at her and extends a hand. Aveline is tempted to twist it behind his back. She knows that the other recruits loathe her for her strength and her skill with sword and shield, but coupled with that loathing is a sense of fear. She had taken constant verbal and physical abuse until she'd gotten used to it, during her time spent training. No one looked kindly on the daughter of an ex-Chevalier after all, least of all her Fereldan born-and-bred fellows. She'd made herself take punishment after punishment until her hands were strong enough to break fingers and her fists no longer smarted whenever she hit someone in the face.

"What do you want?" she asks instead, hands clasped firmly about her pint of ale. He is ropey and frail-looking, unlike any other boy she has had to deal with over the years, and she wonders if he should even be allowed in.

"Would you care to dance with me?" he asks in reply, pale cheeks flushing a bright and violent red. Aveline blinks; once, twice, three times. The boy extends a hand towards her. It is small for what she guesses his age is, thin and long-fingered and devoid of the hard calluses that litter her own hands. After a while, she takes it, cautious in this as in everything else.

"What's your name?" she wonders aloud, as he leads her to the solid wooden floor where some of her fellow recruits are drunkenly swaying about.

"Wesley. Wesley Vallen," he replies and his smile is wide and genuine.

Five years later, she is out on patrol one night with a fellow guardsman. He is a tall, stocky fellow, broad in the shoulder and full in the face. She is new in the barracks, and so does not really know anyone just yet. But her fellow guard had introduced himself almost immediately after their patrol roster had been assigned. "Donnic Hendyr," he'd said with a warm smile, extending his hand.

Aveline hadn't hesitated and had gripped his hand in hers, had wondered at the fact that their calluses had lined up almost identically. "Aveline Vallen," she'd said with an answering smile, and Donnic had given a faint chuckle.

"I know, serah. Your reputation precedes you. Brennan already told me about the vicious new red-head. That is, I mean - what I mean to say is, oh blast it!"

She'd laughed then. "It's alright. Doubtless most of what you've heard is true." And Donnic had given her an apologetic smile, small and nervous and quite attractive.

"I'm glad we got assigned the same patrol," Donnic says of a sudden from beside her, pulling her from her reverie. "It gives me the chance to get to know you better." He flushes a bit, but his voice is calm and steady.

"So am I," Aveline says genially. "It's been years since I've had a man not cower away when I open my mouth." They laugh then, even though Donnic seems out of sorts and Aveline feels as awkward and ungainly as when her breasts had first come in. They spend the rest of the night's patrol talking about anything that comes to mind, and when they head back to the barracks, Aveline thinks that she might be able to make a place for herself in Kirkwall after all.

\--

Wesley asks her hand in marriage when they are eighteen. They've decided to honour tradition and ask permission in her family's home, but her father sends the both of them disapproving scowls all through the proposal, and draws her aside when it is over. His large hands clamp themselves almost painfully on her upper arms. "Do not do this, Aveline. Nothing good will come of this," he pleads, and she's surprised at the very real hint of sorrow his voice contains.

"I love him," she says simply, because it's true.

"What will he give you? Nothing that you cannot claim for yourself, Aveline!" Ferelden has settled itself into her father's bones, but at times like these, when he is angry or overwhelmed, his Orlesian accent still comes through strong and sharp. "Think, girl! What has he achived yet?"

"He's a brave man and a valorous Templar. He sees me as more than a mere legend," she bites out fiercely, whipping away from her father's tight embrace. "He loves me not because he sees some Maker-forgotten Knight in my face, but because I am myself!"

Her father releases her then, grip going slack and she flees to the rooftop of the small, cramped hovel Benoit Du Lac calls home. His look of shock and betrayal is still etched in her mind when Wesley finally finds her.

"Aveline, love? What are you doing here?" he asks, voice tender. In the west, the sun is a ball of molten gold hanging low over the sloping roofs of Denerim's skyline and the shadows of nearby buildings draw long, dark fingers across the dirty paving of the nearby market streets.

"Do you love me?" she asks, voice steady. Knights do not cry, after all and this is no different.

"Of course I do!" Wesley answers in dismay, drawing her into the circle of his arms. "I love you more than the world, more than anything!" His conviction is clear, and Aveline lets herself fall; closes her eyes and breathes deep of his scent. When their eyes meet, she knows what is going to happen.

"Take me," she says. It is not a request. Wesley gives her a deep, searching look and nods. They make love in her tiny room that night, with the day's warmth still clinging to the walls. Wesley takes her, painful and fast and awkward and Aveline finally, finally allows herself to remember that she is a woman. Wesley kisses away her tears and holds her close, whispers _I love you_ to her over and over until his voice is hoarse.

Ten years later, Aveline is admiring herself in one of the mirrors in Hawke's personal dressing room. She is dressed in a dark green gown, with daisies Merrill had plucked especially for the occassion woven into the thick braid of her hair. Hawke sends her approving looks and wolf-whistles that make her flush and turn her freckles invisible against her skin. "You look ravishing," he tells her with a grin and a wink, and Aveline smiles happily.

"Thank you Hawke," she says, and means it. "For everything."

"It's no trouble. Anything for one of my oldest and dearest friends," Hawke replies, voice sincere. "After all, the barracks is no place for a wedding. A deliciously naughty tryst on a hot summer's night when all the other guards are asleep? Definitely. But for this? No."

"You have the lewdest mind of anyone I know," Aveline responds, rolling her eyes. "Save for the whore, of course. Let me guess, Hawke. She's the one who taught you?"

"Ah, Aveline, you miss nothing," Hawke teases. Just then, there is a knock on the door, followed by a nervous throat-clearing. "Well, well," Hawke says with mischievous glee and moves to open the door. "It looks like I'm no longer needed here." Donnic gives him a bashful smile when the door opens and Hawke grins back at them knowingly before leaving and closing the door with a loud, obvious click.

"You look breathtaking, Captain," Donnic murmurs and steps closer, wraps his arms around her waist and props his chin on one of her well-defined shoulders. Aveline can see the appreciation writ plain on his face, and turns in the embrace, winds her arms about his neck and gives him a languid smile.

"You don't look too bad yourself, Guardsman Donnic," she mouths against his stubbled chin. His hands slide lower, down to her hips and Aveline shudders at the feel of his large hands, thumbs rubbing steady circles against the heavy velvet of her gown. "Do you love me?" she asks on a whim, and Donnic retracts one of his hands, cups her chin and tilts it up for her to meet his eyes.

"With every fibre of my being," he says. And then his lips are on hers, firm and insistent and absolutely heavenly. They stay in the dressing room for a good hour longer, and her dress is skewed and her hair mussed when Hawke finally knocks on the door and informs them that the wedding is already running a few minutes late. Aveline ignores his look of mock scandal when she opens the door, and focuses on trying to rid Donnic of his unrelenting blush. "I love you," she says just before they walk down the main staircase, tears pricking her eyes and her voice hoarse.

\--

Aveline loses her first husband when she is twenty one. They are surrounded by strangers, and Aveline can feel the heavy burden of a dozen eyes prick and burn on the back of her neck. It isn't fair. She and Wesley have fought so hard and come so far, only for his life to end in the arse end of Ferelden at the blade of a common hurlock.

"Be strong, my love," Wesley urges, and Aveline bites her tongue. _Knights do not cry_ , he father had always said, an adage older than time. She is no knight, but she will not do Wesley the injustice of weeping like a farmgirl. So she slides the blade in just below his ribs, making sure to pierce his heart. Just like her father had taught her, a lifetime ago.

"It never gets any easier," Flemeth says, something like pity in her voice. And for once, Aveline ignores what her heart tells her, and turns her back on her past.

Aveline finds her second husband again when she is thirty. It's been weeks since she last saw him, and relief floods her chest when she finds him pacing her office in the keep. Donnic looks as though he cannot believe his eyes when she leans in the doorway and murmurs, "Hello handsome."

For a while, all he does is stare at her in disbelief, and then he crosses the worn office floor to the threshold and sweeps her up in his arms, twirls her the way her father had back when there had been flashes of red hair and a warm female voice.

"You came back," Donnic whispers fiercely, protectively into her hair. "Thank the Maker, you came back. Don't ever leave like that again."

"I wouldn't ever leave you, not for all the world," she says, and presses a kiss to his temple. "That's a promise."


End file.
